Esker: A Greener Seattle, One Building at a Time

Amid all of Seattle’s new development, I’m particularly excited about Esker, an seven-story, mixed-use building that will green-ify a significant piece of Capitol Hill. This thing looks cool. It’s a giant “living wall” terrace system, and in the developer’s (SolTerra) own words:

Each of these terraces have been articulated around the range of the summer sunset azimuth so that each resident along this facade will maintain the incredible sunset views that often grace Seattle throughout the summer.

These terraces will feature large planters and be faced with both trellis and living walls to create a softened vegetated facade blurring the lines between what is natural hillside and what is architecture. This blend of the natural slope of the hillside evokes natural beauty and permanence and will help to mitigate the sound of traffic along the Interstate.

Esker will house 72 residential units, 15,000 square-feet of ground level retail space, below-grade parking for 35 vehicles (possibly including car elevators), storage for 25 bikes, and rooftop restaurant/amenity space. There might also be a ground floor “marketplace” of some sort. Here’s the latest news on its development.

This building is a beautiful way to incorporate new green space into the urban-as-it-gets Capitol Hill neighborhood. Located between I-5, Pine, and Melrose, Esker will provide a stunning, environmentally-sustainable, and useful addition to Seattle.